Religious Ethics in a Conflicted Word—On Ethical Motivation between Political Theology and Anthropology

Abstract

The article seeks to define the concepts of religion and ethics as well as their compound. It does so (1) by asking for the supposed demarcation line between religious and secular ethics and (2) by considering the relation of religious ethics and political theology. Based on the respective findings, the article offers a meta-ethical perspective on the subject by challenging the anthropological backdrop of both secular and religious ethics. In conclusion, it proposes a formal approach to ethical judgment that may function as a discerning method when it comes to the assessment of specific models of religious and/or secular ethics. In this regard, the article provides conceptual thoughts on ethical motivation and the operationalization of ethics on an institutional level.